Technical Field
The embodiments herein generally relate to information and communications technology, and more particularly to a recipient centric messaging system and protocols used to implement the recipient centric messaging system over data networks.
Description of the Related Art
Communication is fundamental to how humans function in social and business settings. Electronic devices are prominently used for communication over data networks. A data network is a telecommunication network that allows electronic devices to exchange data with each other along network links or data connections that are established using either wired or wireless media. The best-known data network is the Internet. The Internet has brought about a revolution in communication by enabling synchronous as well as asynchronous communication.
One of the oldest forms of asynchronous communication is email, which is particularly prevalent among first generation Internet users and is often used as a preferred form of communication, particularly at the workplace. Email is sender centric in that once a sender has a recipient's address, he/she can send any type of message or any number of messages to that recipient. In email, there is no way for the recipient to control the content of received messages (e.g. attachments, images, etc.). Email is very easy to access and there is no cost to send bulk messages, but as a result, low-quality content, irrelevant, and/or inappropriate messages get sent, which recipients are responsible for filtering out. Hence it has become a huge challenge for most of us to prioritize and focus on the emails that deserve our attention over the ones that don't. Since each of us has a limited amount of time and attention, those of us who are unable to prioritize end up being less productive at work and/or losing control of our work-life balance or end up missing on important messages that get misclassified as spam.
There are numerous email client-apps and free email services available, and many of them have sophisticated spam filtering techniques to help users with this deluge of email but they are still noisy. Furthermore, even legitimate messages can be lost while filtering spam. The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the Internet standard used to carry email. In the process of transporting email messages between systems, the SMTP communicates delivery parameters using a message envelope that is separate from the message (e.g., header and body) itself. Although electronic mail servers and other mail transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages, user-level client mail applications typically use SMTP only for sending messages to a mail server for relaying. For receiving messages, client applications usually use protocols such as POP3 or IMAP.
Although proprietary systems (e.g., Microsoft Exchange and IBM Notes) and webmail systems (e.g., Outlook.com, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail) use their own non-standard protocols to access mail box accounts on their own mail servers, they use SMTP when sending or receiving email from outside their own systems. Current email protocols and systems have no way of enforcing constraints on messages since the existing protocols (e.g. SMTP, POP, IMAP and MAPI) are optimized to make sending messages easy and any email system has to comply with these protocols in order to send or receive email from outside their own systems. Given the large number of existing implementations of email clients, adding new protocols on top of the existing ones is very difficult. The power of email is its ubiquity and the variety of email clients that one can use, but this same variety makes it very challenging to change the email protocols. Once the email address is compromised to spammers, the only solution is to change the email address. At the same time, people often make it hard to find their email address to avoid getting irrelevant messages, which makes for the opposite challenge.
Professional networks like LinkedIn allow users to freely message people within their own professional networks, but impose restrictions on messaging people outside their network. Their business model is based on relaxing these restrictions by paying the third party a fee (e.g., a subscription). Nowadays digital advertising has become pervasive. It is embedded within websites, within feeds of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc., within news sites, within videos on YouTube, and so on. All of these advertisements are seeking your attention and your time and trying to influence you. The third party run websites claim to provide you with free services, (e.g., free news articles, free ways to store your photos and connect with your friends, free videos, and so on) in return for your attention and your time. Almost all of the revenue generated from advertising is, however, typically kept by the company providing the service, despite your contribution as a user by providing relevant content and your profile information that keeps other users interested in spending time on these websites. Many of these companies have become hugely profitable, like Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn.
The business model associated with such free-services and advertising has recently come into question in terms of the negative implications it has for the future of society. One book on the topic is “Who Owns the Future?” by Jaron Lanier. He posits that the middle class is increasingly disenfranchised from online economies. By convincing users to give away valuable information about themselves in exchange for free services, firms can accrue large amounts of data at virtually no cost. Lanier calls these firms “Siren Servers,” alluding to the Sirens of Ulysses. Instead of paying each individual for their contribution to the data pool, the Siren Servers concentrate wealth in the hands of the few who control the data centers.
Further, since people are on multiple web sites, and each site has their own communication system, people need to manage their communication on multiple sites which leads to a fragmentation of time and attention. For example, an influential might get hundreds of messages per day across multiple communication channels with asks on his attention such as review requests, speaking engagement requests etc. and have full time staff to handle such requests. Many times messages might be lost if the influential did not check the message on the particular channel. Engineers might hear from recruiters more than ten times a week, but many of these messages might go to an email address that they don't check often.
Different people are likely to receive very different amounts of messages depending on where they live, their income level, their profile information etc. Job seekers might be open to receiving as many opportunities as possible. A large number of people might receive very few messages omen might be open to receiving relevant messages on sites like Quora, but many of them are bombarded with inappropriate messages. This is especially true if they have a photo on their profile where men send them dating requests etc. Accordingly, there remain a need for a communication system that is (i) flexible and well-designed and provides a single place to check and reply to messages from people outside their social network and (ii) addresses concerns and needs of a multitude of users across different segments in a way that they are comfortable with having a public communication address.